This may be our last and final blog. Or maybe we will blog during our LONG layover in London. Unless security actually takes the 5 hours!
Today, our last day of vacation we did a lot in Amsterdam.
We got out of the hotel at 1pm and found a cafe we somehow bypassed yesterday. Actually, yesterday we did see it but it said "Kaffe Huis" on the door and Marc had read somewhere that "coffee houses" in Amsterdam were really places to purchase and smoke marijuana....but this clearly wasn't one of those, so we went in. Actually, we sat at some tables across the street from the cafe on the canal. The girls had apple pancakes (yummy) and hot chocolate. Marc and I both had "old cheese sandwiches"...what's that, you ask? Bread with two pieces of cheese between. Old cheese we were told was "hard cheese", "Young cheese" was soft cheese. We did the old, hard cheese. It was good.
Then we walked around all the boutiques, bought a few things...not much. Emily would have preferred to shop (and buy) all day, but we couldn't leave Amsterdam without seeing the Rijks museum....
So we headed there. This is a beautiful museum, but filled with not our favorite art. We decided to only spend a bit of time in there. We had a pre purchased pass that allowed us to cut the line (essential, because the line was LONG). The best were the room with the Vermeers. Sarah loves this painter ever since reading Chasing Vermeer. We looked for the girl with the pearl earing, but she is in the Hague. We did see some other beautiful ones. We spent a bit of time in the gift shop where Sarah bought a notebook to add to her growing collection (she must have about 20 museum notebooks by now).
We then headed back and because it was starting to rain we jumped on a trolly. The trolly was SO crowded. There were people on the steps when the doors closed. We were so squished we just had to get off at the next stop and bear the rain. We jumped off. The rain already stopped. When we got off we realized that we hadn't paid the fare. Marc read in the guide book that this happened a lot during rush hour (it was about 4:30). Well Sarah would have none of this and refused to walk any further until we had paid our fare. This didn't seem possible. NO other trollies in sight and how could we just get on to pay the fare (we didn't even know the fare). We some how convinced her that we would get the fare to the trolly office (??). We told her we would give it to the concierge at the hotel and they would see that the trolly office gets the money.
We headed back toward our hotel, stopping at an organic bakery we had discovered earlier. We got pizzas for the girls and some bread for the morning.
Our plan now is to go the the houseboat museum but it's 4;40 and the museum closes at 5:00. We drop Emily and Marc off at the hotel and Deb and Sarah go off to find the museum. We know it's at 272 Prisengraft street....and our hotel is at 315. So we assume it's just a bit past on the opposite side of the street. Well it turns out that the canal streets aren't like that. When we get to 273 and cross the street we are at 180. Makes no sense, but we have to walk all the way back down to 272 (about 5 blocks). The museum is about to close, but we make it in and view the small houseboat.
We walk back to the hotel and pick up Em and Marc to go find a paddle boat (the girls' last request!) Sarah reminds me that we need to go pay the concierge for the trolly fare, but I am trying to aviod this. The lobby is busy and smoke filled, so I make an excuse that we will do this later.
We rent a paddle boat (you actually pedal it like a bike and need to steer it with a hand steering thing). This sounds so much easier than it is! It's hard work and then there is the issue of avoiding all the oncoming boats in the canal.
After the paddleboat adventure....managing to keep the boat (and ourselves) intact, we head toward our favorite noodle place for our take out dinner. We eat it in our courtyard of our hotel and the girls have yogurt smoothies. Yum. Our last night.
Marc does deal with the unpaid trolly fare. He and Sarah ask the concierge. She confirms that no one really pays when it's so crowded and that it's OK. Marc asks Sarah if she is OK with this and of course she says "no" with tears welling up in her eyes. So Marc asks the concierge if she will see that the trolly company gets the fare and hands over 4.80 EUROS. We are thinking Sarah is en route to becoming either a Rabbi or an ethicist.
Taxi at 7:30 tomorrow to head out to the Amsterdam airport and then on to Heathrow and home!
It's been fun!!
Today, our last day of vacation we did a lot in Amsterdam.
We got out of the hotel at 1pm and found a cafe we somehow bypassed yesterday. Actually, yesterday we did see it but it said "Kaffe Huis" on the door and Marc had read somewhere that "coffee houses" in Amsterdam were really places to purchase and smoke marijuana....but this clearly wasn't one of those, so we went in. Actually, we sat at some tables across the street from the cafe on the canal. The girls had apple pancakes (yummy) and hot chocolate. Marc and I both had "old cheese sandwiches"...what's that, you ask? Bread with two pieces of cheese between. Old cheese we were told was "hard cheese", "Young cheese" was soft cheese. We did the old, hard cheese. It was good.
Then we walked around all the boutiques, bought a few things...not much. Emily would have preferred to shop (and buy) all day, but we couldn't leave Amsterdam without seeing the Rijks museum....
So we headed there. This is a beautiful museum, but filled with not our favorite art. We decided to only spend a bit of time in there. We had a pre purchased pass that allowed us to cut the line (essential, because the line was LONG). The best were the room with the Vermeers. Sarah loves this painter ever since reading Chasing Vermeer. We looked for the girl with the pearl earing, but she is in the Hague. We did see some other beautiful ones. We spent a bit of time in the gift shop where Sarah bought a notebook to add to her growing collection (she must have about 20 museum notebooks by now).
We then headed back and because it was starting to rain we jumped on a trolly. The trolly was SO crowded. There were people on the steps when the doors closed. We were so squished we just had to get off at the next stop and bear the rain. We jumped off. The rain already stopped. When we got off we realized that we hadn't paid the fare. Marc read in the guide book that this happened a lot during rush hour (it was about 4:30). Well Sarah would have none of this and refused to walk any further until we had paid our fare. This didn't seem possible. NO other trollies in sight and how could we just get on to pay the fare (we didn't even know the fare). We some how convinced her that we would get the fare to the trolly office (??). We told her we would give it to the concierge at the hotel and they would see that the trolly office gets the money.
We headed back toward our hotel, stopping at an organic bakery we had discovered earlier. We got pizzas for the girls and some bread for the morning.
Our plan now is to go the the houseboat museum but it's 4;40 and the museum closes at 5:00. We drop Emily and Marc off at the hotel and Deb and Sarah go off to find the museum. We know it's at 272 Prisengraft street....and our hotel is at 315. So we assume it's just a bit past on the opposite side of the street. Well it turns out that the canal streets aren't like that. When we get to 273 and cross the street we are at 180. Makes no sense, but we have to walk all the way back down to 272 (about 5 blocks). The museum is about to close, but we make it in and view the small houseboat.
We walk back to the hotel and pick up Em and Marc to go find a paddle boat (the girls' last request!) Sarah reminds me that we need to go pay the concierge for the trolly fare, but I am trying to aviod this. The lobby is busy and smoke filled, so I make an excuse that we will do this later.
We rent a paddle boat (you actually pedal it like a bike and need to steer it with a hand steering thing). This sounds so much easier than it is! It's hard work and then there is the issue of avoiding all the oncoming boats in the canal.
After the paddleboat adventure....managing to keep the boat (and ourselves) intact, we head toward our favorite noodle place for our take out dinner. We eat it in our courtyard of our hotel and the girls have yogurt smoothies. Yum. Our last night.
Marc does deal with the unpaid trolly fare. He and Sarah ask the concierge. She confirms that no one really pays when it's so crowded and that it's OK. Marc asks Sarah if she is OK with this and of course she says "no" with tears welling up in her eyes. So Marc asks the concierge if she will see that the trolly company gets the fare and hands over 4.80 EUROS. We are thinking Sarah is en route to becoming either a Rabbi or an ethicist.
Taxi at 7:30 tomorrow to head out to the Amsterdam airport and then on to Heathrow and home!
It's been fun!!
posted by csmcid at 8:59 PM
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